In this task we are practicing search engine optimization. We decided, that we would start a company selling baby clothing. We chose to use the keywords "baby", "clothing" and "apparel".
The competition situation is as follows (fun fact is, that it depends on which computer you search on: this was done on Pavlo's computer and the results are different on other computers):
Our strongest competitors are motherhood.com, babycity.co.uk and mothercare.com (which appeared on all of our results when cross-checked).
Motherhood.com has quite a lot of errors in W3-validation, but it does have quite good metadata related to the content. A good fact is, that they sell only clothes to pregnant women, which gives us upper hand on getting over it in the baby context.
Babycity.co.uk checks out from the W3 with only a few errors and they have decent metadata. The problem is, that it is misleading: they sell baby clothing in a minor part only and focus on pregnancy and baby care-taking items.
Mothercare.com seems to share the details with motherhood.com, except for the details about pregnancy clothing. Although there is metadata, it is not exact and the meta keywords could also be slightly better. The title of the page is way too long in order to be spot-on.
In overall the competition seems to be done in a half-good way: important matters are there, but they could be better and more accurate. That's where our company is going to strike.
We decided to make a good, short and exact title, get the meta description the same and then add a lot of keywords related to baby clothing (at least baby, clothing, apparel, clothes, children, small). The oddish part is, that it seems that just by focusing on offering actual baby clothing we could rise to the first place, since most of the competition is selling a smaller selection of items (it has directly nothing to do with SEO, but Google seems to show frequently visited sites higher, so by gaining popularity we would gain popularity).
We would like to mention the inconsistency among Google search results depending on the computer. As said, SEO is more like magic and here it can be seen: results differ heavily, which means that there should be some air for new competition (at least hopefully). We tested out on four different computers with the same search words and the results varied every time; how could we then guarantee that our site would be in the top, when even the major players can't?
torstai 4. marraskuuta 2010
keskiviikko 20. lokakuuta 2010
Weekly task five: Plan an advertising campaign utilizing social media
In this task we were given previously mentioned task. We decided to scrap the idea of making it for a company and planned a campaign for a TV-series (which does not actually exist).
The series would be about a worldwide pandemic of a previously unknown disease (like swine flu or bird flu), killing people living in the major cities. The series would be mainly located in the USA, with some references to the events in India, China, Japan and Europe. The main plot would first develope from people having no knowledge of it, just the mass deaths and odd symptoms which doctors can not cure. After that, bio-terrorism would be suspected and task forces would try to find the persons responsible, finding only that they are also affected by it.
The series would have an official website, MySpace site, Facebook fan site and a Twitter profile. Also short clips would be made for YouTube ("newsflashes" of the events).
The official site would be made with a mysterious, glooming theme and it would contain most of the information behind registration area. The front page would be covered with fake newspaper headlines stating "Global Pandemic", "What is happening?" etc. That would of course be free. The basic information, such as airing dates and channels would be of course available, but without any details on what they contain (that it actually is a series, not reality).
Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Youtube would be used for broadcasting bits and pieces of information related to the series and the idea of it. Twitter profile would be used for spreading rumors about the pandemic, without any exact details. YouTube videos would be fake newsflashes, showing people dying and deserted cities. Hidden in the videos and messages there would be some messages, requiring some deduction skills. By gathering the information, people would be able to answer some of the questions in the official site, and then access the full content. After registering, the most effective people in finding the answers would be awarded with some fancy fan material.
After airing the show, the webcampaign would reveal the truth (that it is TV-series) and stop adding the mysterious content. The webpages and fan sites would be of course maintained and upcoming events would be "leaked" to Twitter, YouTube could be used for some off-screen material and extras.
In overall: the campaign would utilize social media capabilities and word of mouth heavily. The official site would serve as the main point of the campaign, assisted by the fan sites and Twitter profile. The overall costs would not be that big in this area (not counting or planning how to advertise on TV, maybe just some short spots and links?) and the technical side would also be quite easy to execute.
The TV-series idea has absolutely nothing to do with the new movie featuring Viggo Mortensen. We do not even know the name of the movie. But basically the campaign was the point here.
The series would be about a worldwide pandemic of a previously unknown disease (like swine flu or bird flu), killing people living in the major cities. The series would be mainly located in the USA, with some references to the events in India, China, Japan and Europe. The main plot would first develope from people having no knowledge of it, just the mass deaths and odd symptoms which doctors can not cure. After that, bio-terrorism would be suspected and task forces would try to find the persons responsible, finding only that they are also affected by it.
The series would have an official website, MySpace site, Facebook fan site and a Twitter profile. Also short clips would be made for YouTube ("newsflashes" of the events).
The official site would be made with a mysterious, glooming theme and it would contain most of the information behind registration area. The front page would be covered with fake newspaper headlines stating "Global Pandemic", "What is happening?" etc. That would of course be free. The basic information, such as airing dates and channels would be of course available, but without any details on what they contain (that it actually is a series, not reality).
Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Youtube would be used for broadcasting bits and pieces of information related to the series and the idea of it. Twitter profile would be used for spreading rumors about the pandemic, without any exact details. YouTube videos would be fake newsflashes, showing people dying and deserted cities. Hidden in the videos and messages there would be some messages, requiring some deduction skills. By gathering the information, people would be able to answer some of the questions in the official site, and then access the full content. After registering, the most effective people in finding the answers would be awarded with some fancy fan material.
After airing the show, the webcampaign would reveal the truth (that it is TV-series) and stop adding the mysterious content. The webpages and fan sites would be of course maintained and upcoming events would be "leaked" to Twitter, YouTube could be used for some off-screen material and extras.
In overall: the campaign would utilize social media capabilities and word of mouth heavily. The official site would serve as the main point of the campaign, assisted by the fan sites and Twitter profile. The overall costs would not be that big in this area (not counting or planning how to advertise on TV, maybe just some short spots and links?) and the technical side would also be quite easy to execute.
The TV-series idea has absolutely nothing to do with the new movie featuring Viggo Mortensen. We do not even know the name of the movie. But basically the campaign was the point here.
torstai 14. lokakuuta 2010
Weekly task four: Ovi.com by Nokia
In this task we needed to familiarize ourselves with the mentioned service. After some inspection and arguing, we came to these conclusions:
The service as an idea is good: it has combined several functions into one service (Apple used to have App store and iTunes separately), it's properly done and looks good. It could be successful, but that depends heavily on the new Nokia mobile phone OS. If the OS is not getting any better than the current Symbians, Ovi will not be a hit.
Assuming that Nokia is giving percentages from the products sold in Ovi to the developers, it could be a decent source of income for them. This depends heavily on the success of the service, so it is not that straightforward. With the Qt coming, there are some promising possibilities here.
When considering the mobile platform markets the development of Ovi does not change Nokia's position that significantly. As we already stated, we feel that the upcoming OS's will play a bigger part in the game. Apple and Android are currently dominating the software download scene, but now that Nokia has a decent service set up, things might change. The competition status stays the same: three major operating systems on mobile platforms.
In our opinion the purchase of Navteq was a good thing. Even though they could not make proper profits with it, the offering of the service for free is a significant improvement for the Ovi service (Apple offers the maps for free but without navigation). This could be one of the factors helping Nokia in the business.
In overall
Ovi looks nice, the offering is wide enough, it's well made and there are a lot of possibilities with it. Only problem is, that it's targeted currently to the Symbian OS on Nokia phones, which are not getting praise from the users and are losing market share to the competition. Nokia's choices in the near future will determine greatly the success of Ovi.
The service as an idea is good: it has combined several functions into one service (Apple used to have App store and iTunes separately), it's properly done and looks good. It could be successful, but that depends heavily on the new Nokia mobile phone OS. If the OS is not getting any better than the current Symbians, Ovi will not be a hit.
Assuming that Nokia is giving percentages from the products sold in Ovi to the developers, it could be a decent source of income for them. This depends heavily on the success of the service, so it is not that straightforward. With the Qt coming, there are some promising possibilities here.
When considering the mobile platform markets the development of Ovi does not change Nokia's position that significantly. As we already stated, we feel that the upcoming OS's will play a bigger part in the game. Apple and Android are currently dominating the software download scene, but now that Nokia has a decent service set up, things might change. The competition status stays the same: three major operating systems on mobile platforms.
In our opinion the purchase of Navteq was a good thing. Even though they could not make proper profits with it, the offering of the service for free is a significant improvement for the Ovi service (Apple offers the maps for free but without navigation). This could be one of the factors helping Nokia in the business.
In overall
Ovi looks nice, the offering is wide enough, it's well made and there are a lot of possibilities with it. Only problem is, that it's targeted currently to the Symbian OS on Nokia phones, which are not getting praise from the users and are losing market share to the competition. Nokia's choices in the near future will determine greatly the success of Ovi.
keskiviikko 6. lokakuuta 2010
Weekly task three: Advertisement campaign
We selected Puolenkuun Pelit as our company. Puolenkuunpelit has currently three gaming shops in Finland, one each in Mikkeli, Kouvola and Lahti. They offer all of their game selection and accessories online also, so the customer base is in fact the whole of Finland.
We defined our target market to be primarily Finnish speaking males from the age of 13 to 40, but we expect the customers to be mainly between 17 and 25. This comes from practical experience of people who actually play video and roleplaying games. We decided to use only Google Adwords for this campaign, but we could have searched for gaming community websites and asked directly from them for banner space etc.
The target area is only Finland and user languages can be Finnish, English and Swedish. We decided to do this, since some Finns do not use only Finnish websites or Finnish version of Google (browser default language English, for example), so we are trying to reach as many Finns as possible. Our ad text is the following:
Puolenkuun Pelit
Verkkopelikauppaa luotettavasti!
Laaja valikoima ja nopea toimitus.
www.puolenkuunpelit.com
We chose the following keywords: peli, verkkokauppa, playstation, ps, xbox, nintendo, wii, psp, nds, ds, pc, ohjain, uutuus, ennakkotilaus, lautapeli, roolipeli. We would follow weekly the hits on these keywords and also think of new ones. If the old ones would be costly (only a few click per word), we'd drop them out and/or add new ones.
We decided that we would spend 10 euros per day as our budget. We thought that a ratio of 10 would be good; if we get 100 euros daily through these advertisements, we're satisfied. If the ratio would drop down to 10 euros spent, 20 earned, we would check our keywords again. In a situation vice versa we would be just happy. If business would be doing good and it would look like that we could do even more business through the internet service, we could raise the daily budget.
Analyzing the success of the campaign would be quite easy: follow up how much we sell items online, check the Adwords database on how much clicks per day we have and then compare this information. If it would seem that we don't get any clicks through the service, we would re-plan it (starting from keywords) and re-consider other options (banner ads in different places etc).
We defined our target market to be primarily Finnish speaking males from the age of 13 to 40, but we expect the customers to be mainly between 17 and 25. This comes from practical experience of people who actually play video and roleplaying games. We decided to use only Google Adwords for this campaign, but we could have searched for gaming community websites and asked directly from them for banner space etc.
The target area is only Finland and user languages can be Finnish, English and Swedish. We decided to do this, since some Finns do not use only Finnish websites or Finnish version of Google (browser default language English, for example), so we are trying to reach as many Finns as possible. Our ad text is the following:
Puolenkuun Pelit
Verkkopelikauppaa luotettavasti!
Laaja valikoima ja nopea toimitus.
www.puolenkuunpelit.com
We chose the following keywords: peli, verkkokauppa, playstation, ps, xbox, nintendo, wii, psp, nds, ds, pc, ohjain, uutuus, ennakkotilaus, lautapeli, roolipeli. We would follow weekly the hits on these keywords and also think of new ones. If the old ones would be costly (only a few click per word), we'd drop them out and/or add new ones.
We decided that we would spend 10 euros per day as our budget. We thought that a ratio of 10 would be good; if we get 100 euros daily through these advertisements, we're satisfied. If the ratio would drop down to 10 euros spent, 20 earned, we would check our keywords again. In a situation vice versa we would be just happy. If business would be doing good and it would look like that we could do even more business through the internet service, we could raise the daily budget.
Analyzing the success of the campaign would be quite easy: follow up how much we sell items online, check the Adwords database on how much clicks per day we have and then compare this information. If it would seem that we don't get any clicks through the service, we would re-plan it (starting from keywords) and re-consider other options (banner ads in different places etc).
perjantai 17. syyskuuta 2010
Weekly task 2: Evaluation
In this weekly task we were required to complete a few things through the pda-banksite of Osuuspankki. The website is a low-bandwidth, ease-of-access aimed web bank portal (which Ville has used before on a mobile device). We evaluated the site according to SU-scale and we're also comparing the scale with ASQ-system.
First of all: the system does not have a link for changing the language AFTER logging in. After a strong debate we decided that although this is a mistake made by the user (read before do anything), they should include it in the system for the ease of use. Checking account balance and paying a bill was simple for us, but all of us encountered some problems while trying to purchase stocks. The purchase itself was done, but confirmation of it was never received and therefore it felt a bit odd. This could also be due the testing environment and it would work when using actual money.
Navigating around in the system wasn't that fluent, for example after paying the bill it would be nice to immediately have a link to the account side and vice-versa, but you had to move through the main menu (why?). Also the stock part is slightly confusing, but we thought that if you are buying stocks, you already know what to do.
Our SUS scores were 85, 62,5 and 55. According to this, the system works but it could do better.
When comparing SUS and ASQ, we found that ASQ is better. It's simpler, the questions are straight-forward and the results can be easily seen without calculations. SUS gives more information, though.
First of all: the system does not have a link for changing the language AFTER logging in. After a strong debate we decided that although this is a mistake made by the user (read before do anything), they should include it in the system for the ease of use. Checking account balance and paying a bill was simple for us, but all of us encountered some problems while trying to purchase stocks. The purchase itself was done, but confirmation of it was never received and therefore it felt a bit odd. This could also be due the testing environment and it would work when using actual money.
Navigating around in the system wasn't that fluent, for example after paying the bill it would be nice to immediately have a link to the account side and vice-versa, but you had to move through the main menu (why?). Also the stock part is slightly confusing, but we thought that if you are buying stocks, you already know what to do.
Our SUS scores were 85, 62,5 and 55. According to this, the system works but it could do better.
When comparing SUS and ASQ, we found that ASQ is better. It's simpler, the questions are straight-forward and the results can be easily seen without calculations. SUS gives more information, though.
perjantai 3. syyskuuta 2010
Weekly task one: File sharing networks
In this task we are considering file sharing networks from the viewpoint of business. It is very well known that piracy is a huge problem in ebusiness and now we are going to speculate about different aspects related to it.
File sharing networks could get money from advertising. This is usually the easiest choice: place advertisements on your website and hope to get income from them. Swedish music service Spotify also uses advertisements between playing songs in their service: this way the customer has to listen to the music (or pay to get rid of them).
Another way to gain money could be making user accounts and entry fees to the system. This, however, is a problem for some customers: they are not willing to pay this entry fee and the service provider does not get income or customers.
A third possibility could be that if the desired customers are working for a company, that company purchases accounts (or some material) for all the employees in that company. It is not exactly selling to a specific customer, but income is still gained.
We consider file sharing to be classified in business to consumer, since usually larger service providers purchase rights to sell music from labels and then sell the data forward to the customer. mCommerce is also possible, since some provides offer solutions to only mobile devices (iPhone, Android etc). If we consider file sharing as a larger concept including software, movies and games for example, the connection seems clearer: usually a single person does not have access or the possibility to sell data in such large scale, so peer-to-peer and consumer to consumer are outruled. Business to business could be possible, as we already mentioned above.
Is the record/movie/x-industry justified in their attempt to shut down file sharing networks? If the question is about illegal file sharing networks, yes. If considering all file sharing networks (for example linux-distribution, open source material), no. The people making the material should get paid, so the illegal-non-profit systems should be shut down, but the problem is how. All networks should not be shutdown, since some people do not want any money from their work, so therefore free sources of material should be always available.
In our opinion illegal downloading will not disappear totally, unless some brand new technology and inventions are introduced. 100% is very hard to get to, so very likely some illegalities will be going on. The rise of systems like Youtube (software scans for copyrighted material before letting it public), Spotify (free for customers at least in some depth), last.fm (same as Spotify) are decreasing the need for illegal systems, but they still do not cover all the needs of users, which leaves a spot for illegal networks.
File sharing networks could get money from advertising. This is usually the easiest choice: place advertisements on your website and hope to get income from them. Swedish music service Spotify also uses advertisements between playing songs in their service: this way the customer has to listen to the music (or pay to get rid of them).
Another way to gain money could be making user accounts and entry fees to the system. This, however, is a problem for some customers: they are not willing to pay this entry fee and the service provider does not get income or customers.
A third possibility could be that if the desired customers are working for a company, that company purchases accounts (or some material) for all the employees in that company. It is not exactly selling to a specific customer, but income is still gained.
We consider file sharing to be classified in business to consumer, since usually larger service providers purchase rights to sell music from labels and then sell the data forward to the customer. mCommerce is also possible, since some provides offer solutions to only mobile devices (iPhone, Android etc). If we consider file sharing as a larger concept including software, movies and games for example, the connection seems clearer: usually a single person does not have access or the possibility to sell data in such large scale, so peer-to-peer and consumer to consumer are outruled. Business to business could be possible, as we already mentioned above.
Is the record/movie/x-industry justified in their attempt to shut down file sharing networks? If the question is about illegal file sharing networks, yes. If considering all file sharing networks (for example linux-distribution, open source material), no. The people making the material should get paid, so the illegal-non-profit systems should be shut down, but the problem is how. All networks should not be shutdown, since some people do not want any money from their work, so therefore free sources of material should be always available.
In our opinion illegal downloading will not disappear totally, unless some brand new technology and inventions are introduced. 100% is very hard to get to, so very likely some illegalities will be going on. The rise of systems like Youtube (software scans for copyrighted material before letting it public), Spotify (free for customers at least in some depth), last.fm (same as Spotify) are decreasing the need for illegal systems, but they still do not cover all the needs of users, which leaves a spot for illegal networks.
Introduction
This blog is created for educational purposes. The creators are three students in the Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences and this material relates to a course called eBusiness.
The students are Bill Griffee, Pavlo Bazilinskyy and Ville Kontinen (whose Google account we are using).
The students are Bill Griffee, Pavlo Bazilinskyy and Ville Kontinen (whose Google account we are using).
Tilaa:
Blogitekstit (Atom)